


Not a Hero

by ziggbot



Category: X-Men Evolution
Genre: Angst, Gen, Headaches & Migraines, Hurt/Comfort, Loss of Control, Mutant Powers, Whump
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-21
Updated: 2018-02-21
Packaged: 2019-03-21 23:23:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,043
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13751376
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ziggbot/pseuds/ziggbot
Summary: After overtaxing his powers, Lance begins to suffer a severe migraine. As it worsens beyond anything he's felt before, his only option is to turn to the group he had been battling against no less than twelve hours earlier: The X-Men.





	Not a Hero

**Author's Note:**

> (This takes place directly after the episode 04x02 "No Good Deed")

It might have been a good thing that Lance had to walk home after the events of the day. If he’d been driving, he’d have crashed, for sure; either from the intense migraine that had started right after he’d sealed the explosion under a dome of rock, or from being distracted from the road while  _killing_  that piece of shit, Pietro Maximoff. Neither option was good, in his mind. Then again, there was a major downside to walking home: he had to deal with the looks of confused horror many people aimed his way.

His face had been all over the news. Just yesterday, he’d been a ‘hero’, even though he never thought of himself as one for a second. He’d been used again. He’d  _let himself_  be used, again. He never wanted  _this_. He never wanted it to go  _this_  far. He never wanted to see people’s eyes fixed on him like he’d let them down. It was hitting him in waves of sickening guilt and shame. He’d been responsible. He’d never once tried to stop it. And why? Because he had a stupid grudge against the Xavier Kids. Jealousy, maybe. Resentment, hell yes. He wanted people like Kelly and Summers to get mud on their faces, just so he could tell them to kiss his ass. But this? It wasn’t worth doing this. He’d hurt people. He hurt  _Kitty_ …

He heard ambulances racing down the streets toward the epicenter of the explosion. People had been hurt, or scared, and needed help. Help from actual good guys. Not him. Not anyone like him. He kept his eyes down after a while, ignoring everyone’s faces. He’d taken his helmet off, holding it loosely at his side as he kept walking.

Foot by foot, he wished he’d had a ride more and more. His legs felt like they were bruised, and the same went for his arms. His muscles always tensed up when he used his powers, and he’d used them more than he ever had before today. His head sure told him so, because it felt like a water balloon waiting to burst. His stomach was knotted up like a fucked up crochet project, probably partly made worse by the shame. He turned into the alley where he’d hidden his civvies, and leaned against the brick wall for a moment to catch his breath. Instead, he ended up hurling.  _Great._

It took him a good fifteen minutes to get fully dressed, stuffing his armor into the duffel bag his clothes had been in before. Slinging it over his shoulder, he walked back out to the street, his head still rattling like a damn maraca, and his heart playing the accompanying drums.

It was dark by the time he got to the Brotherhood of Bayville Boarding House, or as he liked to call it, “A Dump That Temporarily Didn’t Look Like a Dump”. He would have been ready to walk straight in and throttle Pietro until the slime ball could never speak again, but his body was barely strong enough to keep him upright, let alone keep someone else down. He instead just let off a little quake to accompany him slamming the door, a clear sign to back off and shut up. And the sign was received. No one even bothered him as he walked up the stairs and to his room. Good. Slamming that door hurt his head even more…

He walked up to his bed, dropping the duffel bag by the end table before slowly sitting down, bracing himself on his knees. Sitting felt worse than walking. His legs burnt and stung with strain. He pressed his hands to his face, handing his head. His hair slipped free from behind his ears, awkwardly fluffing to the sides from crimping. Maybe sleep would help. He sure as hell wasn’t going to join those jerks for dinner. He laid down on his side, pulling an old, flattened pillow over his head. He didn’t bother undressing. He was too tired and sore to try and do that.

Well, it didn’t help. Hours of torturous insomnia kept him awake and cycling through the mistakes he’d made and the harm he’d done. Though, finally, at around midnight, he drifted into an uneasy sleep. Unfortunately, that only seemed to last for a little while, before he was woken by an intense, pulsing, throbbing pain in his skull. He sat up, the pillow falling off the bed and to the floor. He clutched at his hair, shutting his eyes tight and biting his lip to hold a yelp in. It felt like a knife was trying to stab through his eye and out the back of his skull.

He slowly stood up, having to try twice before actually getting to his feet. He glanced at the alarm clock on the end table, which read 3:02. He winced his eyes shut again, feeling the 'knife’ pressing harder. Something wasn’t right. He’d had migraines before – bad ones, too – but nothing like this. His heart felt like it was beating out a speed rap, and his arms and legs still felt like they were giant bruises filled with cement. He paced for a while, hoping it would go away.

 _It didn’t._  It started to feel  _worse_.

Now the anxiety was setting in. What was it? What was wrong? Did he break something? Was he having a stroke? How could he even know? Who could?

That’s when the idea set in. He swallowed hard, then stepped as quietly as he could out of his room and down the stairs. He checked the kitchen to his right. It was empty, and the only sound from it was the quiet buzzing of the fridge. He checked the living room to his left, where the more obvious sounds of life came from. Fred was asleep on the couch, with the TV playing some old reruns of Simpsons.

It was easy enough to sneak past. He walked to the front door, grabbing his keys from the rack where Pietro left them. Well, there was the one, small, insignificant good deed of his day. He closed the door as gently as possible behind him, and made a b-line for his Jeep. No one would see him leave. They were all probably asleep. Well, maybe Wanda wasn’t. He never really knew when she was watching or not, but she didn’t like talking anyway, especially about things that had nothing to do with her. It was one of the few things he could trust in when it came to the girl.

He started his car, which the very sound of managed to make him have to stop for a moment and grip the steering wheel to recover from the wave of sound-induced pain and nausea. Once it had passed, or as soon as he was able to just ignore it, he pulled out of the driveway and went down the road.

Driving was definitely harder than he’d thought it’d be, but it could have been much worse. The streets were relatively unoccupied at the early morning hours. Some shipping trucks were there, and the noise of their hydraulic brakes and loud horns were enough to make Lance nearly pull over and take another break. Luckily, once he was out of the city’s center, he knew back roads and short cuts, where no one else was driving.

Good thing Xavier’s Institute was fairly remote. Bad thing that he had to drive for thirty minutes just to get there.

He felt an overwhelming sense of relief as he pulled into the circular driveway just outside the institute’s gates. Then that relief was replaced by anxiety and embarrassment as he stepped out of his Jeep. He remembered how the X-Men looked at him, even after he’d stopped the explosion. Even Jean Grey, “Ms. Cordial”, looked like she was ready to shout his ear off. They wouldn’t want to help. He shouldn’t have wasted his time…

But he had no other options. He was feeling even worse, now. His headache was killing him, his arms and legs wanted nothing to do with being attached to him, his stomach was ready to jump ship like the first white bitch off the titanic, and on top of it all, now he felt like the world was spinning. Whatever this was, it wasn’t going away…

His shadow formed against the wall, created by a single headlight from behind him, accompanied by the sound of a motorcycle drawing to a stop and idling. Lance would have turned around to look, if he wasn’t so sure it’d make his head split open more than it felt like it was. He heard a very familiar sound. Snickt. That meant one thing. Wolverine.

“You got any idea how late it is, bub?” the older man’s voice gruffly growled out, sounding like it was coming through his teeth. “If yer lookin’ to pick another fight, you’ve got one hell of a schedule.”

Lance finally turned around, guarding his eyes from the headlight with his hand. “I don’t… I don’t wanna start anything, honest…!” he said with an insistent tone, as hushed as his voice was.

Logan heard it clearly with his enhanced senses, and raised a suspicious brow. “Oh  _yeah?_ ” He turned his bike off and stood up. “Then tell me why you  _are_  here before  _I_ start somethin’.”

Lance looked down at the ground, face tensed into a pained grimace. “I just need…” He struggled to speak, his head spinning faster and faster. The throbbing only got worse with every wave of dizziness. His legs just began to buckle as he tried to speak again, “I need he–” And then it felt like his legs just gave out from under him, and he fell hard on his knees. And now not only did his legs  _feel_  bruised, now they actually  _were_  bruised, with some scrapes on the kneecaps to boot. At least there was so much pain all over that it had dropped down to an unfocused mess.

“Hey!” Logan barked out in a strange mix of frustration and concern as he ran over, claws retracting. He grabbed Lance by the shoulders to keep him upright. “Whoa, kid.” Lance seemed awake, if tired and dizzy. “You gotta get to McCoy. He’ll take care'a ya.” He reached into his pocket, pressing the gate key to open it. “Can you walk?”

“I think so.” Lance nodded slowly. Logan supported the teen as he worked his way back up to his feet. Logan gave Lance’s arm a small pat to assure him, but before he could offer any other words, Lance had suddenly lurched forward to vomit. Logan stared straight ahead, a deadpan look on his face.

 

* * *

 

 

“Did he say anything else while you two were walking here?” Hank asked quietly while observing Lance, laying down on his back as he was slowly pulled through a CT scanner.

Logan stared through the glass window as well, arms crossed. “Not much. Doesn’t want any of the kids knowin’ he’s here. That was about it.”

Hank frowned just slightly. He could guess why Lance didn’t want them to know. He’d been there, yesterday, witness to all of the chaos and destruction caused by the Brotherhood’s antics. He’d also been witness to the conversations in the X-copter on the way home while treating Kitty’s exhaustion. Even Jean, who wasn’t very prone to anger, seemed upset and frustrated by the mess, though not nearly as irked as Scott. And it was all understandable. People were put in serious danger, and the X-Men, themselves, were slandered. Teens were  _teens_. They needed time to vent out their emotions, particularly after something like that.

“Alright. We won’t tell anyone. You go ahead and go…” Hank paused to stare over his shoulder at Logan. “… do whatever it is you do at this hour.” He shrugged with a smirk. Logan gave him a little grunt and sneer, then left the room.

Once the scan was done, Hank looked over the imaging, identifying the migraine, as well as slightly increased ICP. This would have been troubling to anyone treating normal humans, but to an experienced medic treating exclusively Mutants, this was almost routine to see. Jean often struggled with similar symptoms, as did many other mutants with psionic abilities. Still, a brain was still a very fragile organ, prone to permanent damage if left uncared for.

He opened the door to the exam room he’d sat Lance down in. The lights had been dimmed, and the teenager hadn’t even moved from where he was when Hank left. He was hanging his head, eyes closed, with one arm wrapped over his undoubtedly queasy stomach. “Well, the good news is that you aren’t suffering from any bleeding in your brain.” the doctor announced calmly.

“Oh… Yeah, good to know…” Lance said in a nearly muted tone.

Hank tilted his head and set his clipboard aside. “I think you’ve strained your powers. You have chronic migraines, right?” Lance said nothing, but nodded. “It’s caused by overusing your vibration generation. Your brain and heart undergo a lot of stress to produce your geokinesis.”

“Geoki… what?” Lance looked up with squinted, confused eyes.

“Your ability to manipulate rocks and inorganic matter,” Hank clarified with a smile, fixing his reading glasses. “Tell me, when you sealed the explosion under that dome, was that the first time you’d tried it?” The teen nodded again. Hank gave a nod of his own, face content and calm once the last piece came together. “So by doing that, you simply overwhelmed your brain and heart. They need rest to recover. I’ll prescribe some medications to help with that.”

Lance sighed quietly. “I uh… I don’t have any money. Or insurance.”

“Not a problem.” Hank waved his hand. It wasn’t the first time this had happened. “I have a supply of pharmaceuticals here on campus. Free of charge.” He turned to open a cabinet, full of organized medications in various forms.

Lance seemed to slump pensively, eyes cast down to his feet. He looked much like a child who felt guilty for breaking a family vase. “… After everything I did, why do you wanna help me?”

Hank paused while reaching for an empty bottle to fill with capsules of Amidrine. “… There’s more than just one reason.” He continued with his process, taking down the bottle and placing twenty capsules inside of it. “First, I’m a doctor. I help anyone I can, regardless of what I think of them.” He placed the bottle to the side, then grabbed a small bottle of Pepto-Bismol. “Second, I saw something yesterday that I can’t help but remember.” As he turned around, medications in hand, Lance lifted his head to look at him. “I saw a young man risking his own skin to right a wrong he’d been part of.” Hank smiled faintly. “And you know what?” He placed his hand on Lance’s shoulder, his grip soft and soothing. “I think that you don’t want to hurt anyone. I think you have a hero in you, waiting to come out.”

Lance’s face tensed up in a mixed expression of grateful relief and stubborn, solemn disbelief. Defiant as always, even when it was against his own good. He weakly swiped Hank’s hand off his shoulder, refusing to make eye contact. “I don’t want to be a hero. I never will be. All hero’s end up doing is letting people down.”

Hank drew his head back with that same kind and warm expression that he always showed kids in need. “Heroes come in all sorts of different packages, but all of them make mistakes. What makes someone a good hero is a willingness to fix those mistakes. People won’t hold them against you forever.” He placed the medications in a brown paper bag, setting them on the table. “And I don’t think Kitty will hold  _your mistake_  against you for very long, by the way.”

Lance swallowed an obviously emotional lump in his throat, his eyes just a little red and wet. He wiped his face and sharply sniffed, looking away. “So… So are we done?”

“One last thing.” Hank snapped on a pair of specially ordered exam gloves, then picked up a vial and syringe. “Pull your pants down a bit.”

Lance stared at him, eyes wide and cheeks already turning a little pink. “What..!?”

Hank drew the medication from the vial into the syringe.“Unless you’d like me to inject this loading dose of Ketorolac into your tender arm.” He wiggled it around a little, playfully.

Lance stared nervously at the vile, as if considering how much it would hurt to have that thick liquid shoved into his arm, then sighed and stood up. He unzipped and tugged his high-waisted pants down enough to expose his lower back. “This will make you pretty sleepy, so I’ll have Logan drive you home in your Jeep.” He swiped the area with a cold alcohol pad, making Lance chew his lip and tense up. “Oh, don’t do that. This will only hurt  _more_  if you’re tense.”

“You’re not making it easy, okay!?” Lance’s cheeks were bright red, now. After a moment, he relaxed. Hank gave no warning, simply pressing the needle into Lance’s back and slowly administering the medication. Lance winced and hissed out a swear, but stayed still throughout. Once Hank pulled the needle out and placed a bandage over it, Lance quickly pulled up his pants and zipped them closed.

 

* * *

 

 

Hank had Lance stay there for a little longer while Logan came down to pick him up. In that time, the Ketorolac took effect, and Lance felt relief from his pain at last. He was so tired out from it that he nearly fell asleep on the ride home. Luckily Logan wasn’t much of a talker, anyway.

After Logan had left on his bike, which he’d put in the back of the Jeep, Lance sleepily walked inside, up the stairs, and to his room, where he knocked off his shoes and plopped gracelessly into bed.

McCoy’s words still stuck with him. Fixing his mistakes… There were so many. Could he ever hope to fix them all? He thought on if for as long as he could before falling asleep.


End file.
